Dehydrogenative Heck coupling of biologically relevant N-heteroarenes with alkenes: discovery of fluorescent core frameworks.

A Pd/Cu-catalyzed dehydrogenative Heck coupling is established that allows direct alkenylation of various biologically relevant N-heteroarenes with alkenes. The resulting π-extended alkenylated N-heteroarenes exhibit interesting fluorescent properties and have proven to be potentially useful fluorescent probes for bioimaging.

Palladium(II)-catalyzed oxidative C-H/C-H cross-coupling of heteroarenes.

An efficient methodology for the synthesis of unsymmetrical biheteroaryl molecules has been developed via Pd(II)-catalyzed oxidative C-H/C-H cross-coupling of heteroarenes. An inversion in reactivity and selectivity has been achieved successfully to perform the desired heterocoupling. This process allows the heterocoupling of not only electron-rich N-containing heteroarenes (e.

A new strategy for designing non-C2-symmetric monometallic bifunctional catalysts and their application in enantioselective cyanation of aldehydes.

A monometallic bifunctional catalyst, in which only one imidazolyl moiety is directly attached at the 3-position of a binaphthol moiety, has been developed. The ligand (R)-1, which lacks C2-symmetry and flexible linkers, in combination with Ti(OiPr)4, has been demonstrated to promote the enantioselective cyanation of aldehydes with trimethylsilylcyanide (TMSCN), giving excellent enantioselectivities of up to 98 % ee and high yields of up to 99 %. The use of this bifunctional catalytic system obviates the need for additives and is extremely simple as the reagents are added in one portion at the beginning of the reaction.

Facile, mild, and highly enantioselective alkynylzinc addition to aromatic aldehydes by BINOL/N-methylimidazole dual catalysis.

The dual Lewis acid/base catalytic system, generated from N-methylimidazole (NMI), (R)-1,1'-bi-2-naphthol [(R)-BINOL], and Ti(OiPr)4, effectively catalyzes the enantioselective alkynylation of aldehydes in the presence of Et2Zn in good yields and excellent enantioselectivities of up to 94% ee at room temperature. The mild reaction conditions make it possible to use functional alkynes in this asymmetric addition.